Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, DCMS, education, England, Northern Ireland, olympics, OTS, Scotland, UK, vcs, volarts, volunteering
I was in London on Wednesday to take part in the ‘Volunteering and London 2012’ symposium, organised by Volunteering England. This event brought together volunteering agencies and voluntary sector infrastructure organisations from across the UK. We heard from David Huse, Head of Volunteering at LOCOG, about the latest plans for recruiting, training and managing the 70,000 games-time volunteers needed to help run the Olympic and Paralympic Games: the application process for these volunteers (including volunteer performers for the ceremonies) will be launched in summer 2010. We then had a presentation from the Government Olympic Executive about plans for a social legacy marketing plan: the ‘big idea’ is to use London 2012 to inspire participation in volunteering, culture, sport, education and more, across the UK. There will be a campaign to inspire the whole of the country to give time to their local communities. A creative agency has just been appointed and the campaign will be launched in early 2010. We also heard from the Volunteer Development Agency in Northern Ireland, Volunteer Development Scotland and Greater London Volunteering about the progress of their 2012 volunteering initiatives – including the ‘People Making Waves’ programme in Scotland which includes Voluntary Arts Scotland’s ‘Make a Splash’ project. The symposium was followed by a second meeting of the London 2012 Volunteering Legacy Stakeholder Advisory Group where we specifically focussed on the Volunteering England/YouthNet project which is expanding the national volunteering database (do-it.org.uk) to include a wide range of opportunities catalysed by London 2012.
Robin Simpson.
Filed under: meetings | Tags: arts, funding, olympics, research, Scotland, volarts
On Thursday Fiona, David and I were at the Scottish Government offices at Victoria Quay in Edinburgh for our six-monthly tri-partite meeting which brings together officers from the Culture Division of the Scottish Government, the Scottish Arts Council and Voluntary Arts Scotland. It was great to hear in detail about progress towards the establishment of Creative Scotland directly from the civil servant charged with steering the relevant legislation through the Scottish Parliament. Scottish Arts Council is looking at a range of policy issues for Creative Scotland and will launch a major online consultation during October which will be a key opportunity for the voluntary arts sector to try to influence the policy of the new agency. We looked at some initial statistics from the ‘Taking Part’ questions in the Scottish Household Survey which provide information about levels and patterns of arts participation in Scotland. A detailed analysis of this research should be available within the next month. We also met the civil servants responsible for developing the cultural programmes in Scotland relating to both the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games and the 2014 Commonwealth Games. And we updated the Scottish Government and the Scottish Arts Council on our two new major projects: ‘Crafting the Arts’ (funded by the Big Lottery Fund) and ‘Make a Splash!’ (funded by the Legacy Trust).
Robin Simpson.
